There is no doubting the fact that former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has done well as a politician. He has also done well for himself. Among his colleagues, that is, those that served as governors between 1999 and 2007, Tinubu remains the most politically relevant today, with a huge war chest. While many of his colleagues are broke financially and no more in political reckoning, Tinubu has amassed huge political capital, built a fortress for himself that is almost impregnable.
When his colleagues in the South West were tricked by former President Olusegun Obasanjo to lower their political guard in 2003, Tinubu’s political sagacity and perspicacity stood him out. The result was that when his short-sighted colleagues were routed by Obasanjo’s ruthless do-or-die political machine that took no prisoners, Tinubu survived the hurricane.
And because he survived, he became the rallying point, the dominant political figure under whose rugged political umbrella others took shelter. From the rubbles of the decimated Alliance for Democracy (AD), Tinubu founded the Action Congress (AC) which later became the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) that taught Obasanjo bitter political lessons in 2007. By the time Obasanjo became ex-president, Tinubu and his close-knit political family had taught him a few lessons. Thus, by the time the political dust settled in the law courts, ACN was occupying five out of the six government houses in the South West with a remarkable inroad in the South South where the party clinched the political diadem in Edo State.
In 2011, after making sure that his backyard (South West) was secure, Tinubu abandoned the pretentious presidential candidate of his party, Nuhu Ribadu, and took a walk from the ill-fated merger talks between his party and the Muhammadu Buhari-led Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) into the warm embrace of President Goodluck Jonathan and his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Those who know swear by the grave of their grandfathers that Tinubu’s political somersault was oiled by lucre from the villa called Aso. Huge sums of money changed hands and the ACN godfather, arguably one of the richest politicians in the country today, became even richer, while Jonathan became an elected president in his own right.
But in the fluid enterprise such politics, the only thing that is constant is change. Today, Tinubu’s ACN, where he was the party leader and de facto powerhouse, is no more, having, due to the exigencies of struggle for power at the centre, merged with other political parties to form the All Progressives Congress (APC). In ACN, Tinubu was the national leader, while his former governor-colleague, Bisi Akande, the chairman, deferred to him. In making authoritative allocation of values, Asiwaju, as Tinubu is fondly called, decided who got what in the South West. His house in Ikoyi became a political Mecca of sorts, the clearing house. He was not only the unchallenged leader of the party, he was the party.
Even when APC was formed, things didn’t change much. Granted, he now became one of the leaders of the new party rather than the national leader, but the fact that the defunct ACN dissolved into the new party as a bloc made it the dominant group, and its leader a powerful voice. With six governors from the party he almost single-handedly formed and who owe their positions to his magnanimity, it wouldn’t have been different.
But things have changed dramatically. APC is a national party unlike ACN which was a regional party like the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and CPC. Despite his firm grip of the South West, Tinubu’s political influence does not extend beyond the region. But most importantly, the decision by the renegade members of the PDP that called themselves the new PDP (nPDP) to join the opposition APC ensured that the balance of power in the party was dramatically altered.
The nPDP came into the APC “family” with five governors with about two or three more waiting in the wings. This has significant implications. In Nigeria, those in executive positions in government, particularly the governors, fund parties. In Nigeria, governors call the political shots. Unlike when Tinubu was dealing with Buhari, who has no money, the governors that came to swell the ranks of the APC can call Tinubu’s bluff. They have the financial muscle to influence things in the party. They have the political clout to determine how events play out.
Tinubu, the astute politician who taught Obasanjo some lessons in political manoeuvring, should have been sagacious enough to know that the game has changed. But greed for power is obfuscating his hitherto unassailable political perceptiveness. The hallmark of statesmanship is ability to look at the big picture. The only reason APC was born is the realisation that in a one-party dominant state like Nigeria, the only way the opposition can wrest power from the ruling party is if they come together.
But Tinubu’s ambition is putting the spanner in the works, and PDP is the happier for it. Tinubu is scheming to be the party’s Vice Presidential candidate, possibly running alongside General Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. To ensure that this happens, he is insisting that a substantive chairman of the party should not be elected until the presidential candidate emerges. The idea is to allow Akande, his sidekick, to continue in his position and preside over the election of the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the party.
Of course, that has been shot down and the party will go ahead and elect their national officers with Akande not being in the picture. Now, Tinubu has become the axiomatic bull in china shop. It is either he is on the APC ticket or nothing. There are insinuations that he is poised to do encore what he did in 2011 when he did a deal at the last minute with Jonathan. PDP hawks are already salivating. And there is palpable disquiet in the APC.
Will Tinubu betray compatriots in 2015? Time will tell. He did it in 2011 without batting an eyelid. Nothing stops him from doing it again, if that will advance his selfish political agenda. Nigerian politicians don’t have scruples. And despite the posturing about being progressives, many of them are reactionaries.
Tinubu has an elephantine political ego that must be massaged. But he is missing the point this time because he is obviously over-rating his political reach. Yes, he is a kingmaker, a political colossus in the South West, no doubt, but his reach does not go beyond the South West. He should have used the platform of the APC to broaden his national political appeal, if he really wants to play at the national level.
The easiest way for the APC to lose the 2015 election is to put Tinubu on the ticket. Those who are goading him don’t mean well for the opposition party.
